Columnist’s Modest Proposal Would Send Quincy to Missouri

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has an interesting (albeit totally satirical) proposition for solving Illinois’ budget crisis: Dissolve the state and strip it for parts like a rusted out Camaro.

“The best thing to do is to break Illinois into pieces right now,” he writes very tongue in cheekly. “Just wipe us off the map. Cut us out of America’s heartland and let neighboring states carve us up and take the best chunks for themselves.”

In a handy map of what Kass describes as “Kevorkian Illinois”, the western central “chunk” encompassing everything from Adams County straight on up to roughly Bloomington area would be handed over to Missouri.

With a new oddly-shaped hexagonal Show Me State, I can only deduce that Quincy would switch from Western Illinois to…let’s call it Northeastern Central Missouri. (We can work on the semantics later)

On the plus side, we would no longer need to cross the river for cheap gas and illegal fireworks.

Though I don’t know how well Chicagoans will take to becoming “South Milwaukee”. Can you imagine Bears and Packers fans sharing a state? It wouldn’t be pretty.